You have no idea how close I came to skipping the Top 10 list for 2018. If you’ve followed me on social media this year, you probably know this year’s main event was moving from my native North Carolina mountains to what I hope will be my final resting place — Nashville, Tennessee. The sheer […]

**UPDATED BELOW** Want to know what’s worse than a colonoscopy prep? TWO colonoscopy preps. I had my regularly scheduled procedure last week, and it revealed an abnormality the surgical team wasn’t prepared to deal with at the time. The best option was to biopsy and hope it turned out to be a benign case of […]

I remember the excitement of Fall 2016 when America was on the cusp of electing its first female president. Those of us who’d come of age in the women’s liberation movement were “Nasty Women,” jubilant over the chance to finally celebrate the shattering of that ultimate glass ceiling. More importantly, we were set to deal […]

If you listen to old white men, nostalgia means (among other things) a sentimental longing for the days when women were under their thumb; when gays, immigrants and people of color could be openly disparaged and discriminated against without consequence; and when our social, political and media culture constantly reinforced their dominion over all. They […]

I’ve written before about how important fiction is when it comes to setting cultural norms. I write lesbian romances with happy endings because that’s the narrative I want my readers to embrace. My characters overcome their struggles, they triumph over adversity, and the bad guys get what’s coming to them. There are plenty of other […]

But it’s my first audio. That’s right, my latest book — A Proper Cuppa Tea — is ready for a listen at Audible.com. That definitely calls for a freebie or two, don’t you think? Leave a comment here on the blog by Wednesday, August 1st — I’ll draw a name at random for a free […]

I’m pleased to introduce my newest book, available July 15th from Bella Books. For those attending the GCLS con in Las Vegas, I’ll have advanced copies on hand. Here’s an excerpt to get you in the mood. 🙂 CHAPTER ONE “Hundred bucks says her tits aren’t real.” From a quiet corner of the British Airways […]

Most of my lesbian friends have pets. They’re cat people, dog people, guinea pig people, horse people, bird people. Animals are the perfect complement to our lives, whether we live alone or with a partner. Our pets pick us up and calm us down; and best of all, they seem to know exactly when to […]

In December of 2017, a cake baker in Colorado argued before the Supreme Court that being compelled by state law to use his artistic abilities to create a wedding cake for a gay couple violated his Christian beliefs. The ACLU took the couple’s side, arguing that an exception based on religious beliefs opens the door […]

Those of you who’ve been kind enough to follow my blog may sometimes wonder why you bother, since I’ve done a miserable job of keeping it updated. It’s a fair question, and I owe you an answer. I’ve been busy. No, really busy. I spent pretty much the whole of January and February bent over […]

Romance on the public dime. If you’re like me, you’re angry and indignant when it’s someone from the other political party, and disappointed when it’s one of our own. Either way, it exposes a weakness, a character flaw — the allure of sex and/or love proved stronger than one’s sense of duty to the public. […]

Nothing feels like this — finishing a manuscript and sending it off to the publisher & editor. It’s a weird feeling when you’ve been pouring 8-10 hours a day into something and all of a sudden it’s done. Even after just a few hours (and two more episodes of Prisoners’ Wives), I feel strangely guilty, […]

On the heels of my Top 10 list comes my other annual rite — resolutions for the coming year. I’ve always appreciated how the mark of a New Year makes us look ahead with aspirations to be somehow “better.” But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. To be healthier, we must […]

Welcome to my 12th annual Top 10 list. Each year after Christmas, I look back over my calendars, social media posts and blogs, and try to zero in on the most noteworthy bits and pieces so I can memorialize them in one place. If you’ve followed me at all this year on social media, you’ve […]

The good news is that I’m about halfway through my next book. I still like it (mostly), though a couple of times I hit that familiar hurdle when I convinced myself it was utter garbage because I’m a hack. Each time I was able to back up and rework the gnarly bits until I liked […]

For me, it all started with Xena: Warrior Princess. I watched every minute of every episode hoping to see onscreen something I knew was running rampant when the cameras turned away — romantic love between Xena and Gabrielle. Instead I got 134 episodes of subtext with wink-wink deniability, and a studio vehemently proclaiming this wasn’t […]

It’s complicated. No question it was sexual harassment, but I dealt with it assertively and put it down. The problem came later when we talked about it, and later still when I worked through it for lessons on how to protect myself. He was one of my early professional mentors, a divorced man 20+ years […]

You know exactly what I mean. I once shared that my most creative moments of the day were as I fell asleep or languished in bed after waking. In those few minutes, my mind would wander to story ideas, plot twists and all the machinations that go into tying together the threads of a book. […]

Ever have one of those days where you spend five hours writing an angry manifesto and then delete it so people won’t think you’ve gone off the deep end?